


Take Me Home To the Place I Belong

by dancinbutterfly



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Acceptance, Belonging, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, Families of Choice, Homecoming, Love, M/M, Old Married Couple, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8874178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: The people of Rose Creek invite their protectors to stay and Billy and Goodnight must consider the fact that sometimes sanctuary isn't something you find. It's something you make.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MistMarauder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistMarauder/gifts).



> This fic is for MistMarauder who got me into this mess before they ever met me by tempting me with podfic. You bastard. Thank you so much. 
> 
> And yes, the title is from Country Roads Take Me Home by John Denver. No, I couldn't resist. Yes, I am deeply ashamed of myself. Thanks for asking. :D

When Emma asks them to stay after Bogue’s men are wiped out, Billy knows Goody shares his first instinct - to say no and fuck off out of town as soon as possible. They’re violent men, scam artists, and inverts. What they do and who they are doesn’t fit in a place like Rose Creek.

But they’re wounded and recuperating so fucking off isn’t an option for them. They’re stuck in Emma’s house, in the room she insisted he and Goody take. 

No one looks twice at the way she has them tucked together in the big bed that Billy can tell was the one she shared with her late husband, because according to Emma they “hadn’t built a frame for a second bed yet so we never got round to ordering a mattress. Guests always slept on the sofa but after what you boys did, you are not recovering on a sofa.” When they tried to protest that she couldn’t sleep there, she’d hushed them and threatened to call back the doctor with more laudanum. So they were stuck, waiting for their bodies to catch up with their spirits.

If Billy were honest, there were worse places to be than stuck in bed with Goody, even if he does hurt like a sonuvabitch. He doesn’t fight it though. He trusts Emma like he trusts the rest of the crew he traveled with, more than he might anyone outside that select group, so he doesn’t protest. 

It’s easier to keep tabs on Goody like this. Billy can keep a line of sight on him when they’re awake and a hand on him when they sleep. Knowing that Goody is here, in breathing and warm beside him and against his skin, allows him to rest and considering how many bullets the doctor fished out of him is something he desperately needs.

And that’d be one thing. But while they’re laid up, the whole goddamn town rolls through their sick room to thank them. No one even blinks at the way they’re cuddled up like a couple of kittens in a basket. And the invitations pour in.

Teddy Q asks them to stay. Gavin, the whorehouse proprietor asks them to stay. The school marm asks them to stay. Leni Frankel and the mothers they helped hide with heir babies ask them to stay. The men who fought with them ask them to stay. The grizzled old saloon owner ask them to stay, saying that they can drink on the house for the next five years straight “within reason.” Even the preacher asks them to stay.

“You belong with us after all you’ve done,” the preacher says. “You all do and we’ve made it just as plain to the others.”

Goody glances at Billy who shakes his head, just the slightest bit. They can’t stay. They can’t stay anywhere. Not like they are. The road is the only place they can love each other like they do, the only place it’s safe. As long as they’re able-bodied, they’ll take it. And when they’re not, well, hell, they’ll find somewhere lonely and wait each other out. That’s the unspoken plan. Always has been.

“You’re not saying no on account of the fact that you two are fucking are you?” the preacher asks and Goody’s jaw actually drops. 

Hearing a man of the cloth talk like that would be funny if it didn’t scare the shit out of Billy. He itches for his knives. Emma has them laid out for him on her husband’s bedside table. Goody’s guns are on hers. Neither of them are in any shape to do anything more than look longingly at them right now.

“And if it is?” He asks, careful and measured, because Goody would never ask, would never expose him. He can put it out, can show their hand but Goody would never risk his safety. 

“Then I’d say that everyone old enough to know their times tables has known what you two get up to since you got here. You’re not subtle.”

Billy is about to try reaching for his knives anyway when he’s cut off. 

“If you were right, and I’m not saying you are, there are laws to consider,” Goody drawls. “You might could see how that kind of thing could keep a man of the proclivities you describe in a relationship the likes of which you refer to away from…civilized society, as it were.”

The preacher rolls his eyes. “Son, you two care for each other more than some couples I’ve wedded before the sight of my lord Jesus Christ. Any fool with eyes can see that. And even if they couldn’t, you protected our lives and our homes at great risk and cost to yourselves.” He reaches out and holds up his hand, palm up. “You’ve earned our protection in return. Sometimes sanctuary is not somewhere you arrive to, but something you make.” He smiles, then turns his hand to pat Billy’s arm. “I’ll leave you two to think. Do let Mrs. Cullen know when you’re up to seeing visitors properly. Mr. Chisholm and Mr. Vasquez are both hoping to talk to you about more than just your health. Apparently, keeping Mr. Faraday company is quite the chore.”

When he leaves, Goody curls in on himself and doesn’t talk for hours. He’s been running for a long time, longer than Billy has known him. He’s running from his demons mostly and Billy knows he’s exhausted.

“Do you want to?” He asks, finally, after hours of lying in the quiet, when the sun has gone down and they are safe in the dark.

“We can’t,” Goody whispers.

“Running from people hating us is getting fucking exhausting, Goody and they accept me, us, more than anywhere we're likely to find. Hell, they might even meant it when they say they like us. So why not?" He gives Goody a pointed glare. "And don't say money. We’ve been stashing away cash for the last decade. What was the last count? Fifteen thousand?”

“Over twenty,” Goody admits. “Half of that’s in oil though. I should have told you.”

Billy doesn’t even blink. Goody knows money because he comes from money. They tell people they split their cash fifty-fifty but that’s bullshit. They share everything one-hundred percent and Billy has been letting Goody make investments for them since they scraped their first hundred bucks together ten years ago. “So more than that.”

“Probably,” Goody admits. “Probably a good sight more with the way things are going in Texas and Ohio.”

“Okay. So we sit on that, let it keep growing, but we take what’s liquid, bring it here and then just fucking live, Goody. We earned the right to a life.” He reaches out and cups the back of Goody’s neck and holds him steady as he presses their foreheads together. “Don’t you want to have a home?”

Goody's eyes flutter shut for a moment but when they open again they are full of so much emotion that it makes Billy feel small in the face of it. “You’re my home, Billy.”

“And your mine," he says and fuck does he mean it. Goody was the first home he had since childhood but they could do better. They don't need to settle. Not anymore. "But think about it. We could have a home that’s a place. Together. We could have a bed, our own bed. We could actually rest. We could be safe.” He gives the skin beneath his palm a gentle squeeze. “There are worse things than knowing where your bones are going to end up. I could be sure mine will be next to yours if we stay here.”

There’s so much in Goody’s bright eyes, so much hope and so much fear. “That sounds like a lie.”

“I know but I don’t think it is. I think it’s real. I think we can have this. And if not?” He smiles. “We move on, like always but what’s it hurt to try?”

Goody's voice is hoarse and frightened as he concedes to Billy's irrefutable logic. “Nothing.”

“Exactly. Nothing. This way, if you get scared and you run again, you’ll know where to come back to.”

Goody’s hands come up to grip his shoulders tightly. His shame is an ugly mask over his handsome face. “I’m not running again.” 

“I know. But if you needed to.”

Goody studies his face for a long moment then smiles, a real smile this time, huge and open and honest. It's the Goodnight Robicheaux smile that Billy fell in love with all those years ago, that he keeps falling in love with every time he sees it. He doesn't get to see it as often as he likes and he cherishes each sighting.

“Just say you want to, Billy Rocks,” Goody sighs, fondly exasperated. “You can want to have roots. Don’t try and convince me this is all for me.”

“It is for you. It would be so good for you,” Billy pushes. Then he sighs in a sort of pleased defeat. “But yeah, Goody, I want to. I like it here. I hope the rest of the gang do to but whether they choose to or not, I want to stay.”

“Well all right, then.” Goody ducks his head and gives Billy a warm kiss, soft but with the promise of heat in the days to come. “Let's stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES!
> 
> 1)Right, so, I have read a lot of fic in the past few days and they've been fucking amazing but something has bothered me. In an everyone lives AU - why not just stay in Rose Creek? WHY? WHY WHY WHY? These people are your brothers in arms and they look up to and respect you guys, you really think you're going to, what? Do better somewhere else? Besides Sam and MAYBE Red Harvest - what and who do you have to go back to? Where are you going to go? Where would you be safe to be yourselves and not be hunted? Where would people look at you with respect? Come on, guys. For serious. I wanted to go deeper but Billy and Goodnight did not need to talk about that. So. This fic came from that.  
> 2) I did a bunch of math yall. Like a bunch. So assuming that Billy and Goody have been together for 10 years, and make roughly - what? 25 bucks a shoot out? Conservative side of 2 shoot outs a town so maybe ~50 bucks a week - over a decade that'd be about 26K. I took away 6K for weeks they don't work because of traveling, and what they likely spend on food and gear and luxuries and the like - and I made them and living expenses and the like. Chances are, Goody comes from money. Chances also are they've made more than just fifty a week. I'm being stingy here, I really am. So Adjusted for inflation according to the West Egg inflation calculator - 6K in the 1880s is about $100,000 today. 20K is half a million dollars. That is still a good amount of money for the time period. Ridiculous. Like "they probably dont need to work for years and years" money, especially not considering they probably got paid well for the Rose Creek Job. I honestly see them as being fairly set financially. There were banks back then and part of "navigating the white man's prejudices" would almost certainly involve Goodnight having bank accounts for them under his name in some of the bigger cities, you mark my word.  
> 3)The oil boom in Texas was in the 1870s and the oil boom in Ohio was in the 1880s. I can't tell which one the flick is set in? So this is me, covering my bases.
> 
> Come hang out with me on tumblr if you want. I am always around to scream about fictional characters in love and sometimes politics. *hugs*

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Take Me Home To the Place I Belong](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8882536) by [MistMarauder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistMarauder/pseuds/MistMarauder)




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